The present invention relates to the supply of fuel gas to a plurality of burners through a common manifold and particularly relates to such supply as it is implemented in cooking appliances such as in household rangetop or oven burners.
Heretofore, in the manufacture of household cooking appliances, it has been necessary to provide a pressure regulator for supplying fuel gas at a reduced pressure from the supply line to the rangetop or oven burners in order to control the flow of gas and prevent line pressure fluctuations from causing a flame outage and subsequent hazard of explosion due to continued gas flow after the flame outage. This need for a pressure regulator is particularly acute for rangetop burners which are deemed to be attended burners. An attended burner is one which is monitored visually by the user and thus a flame sensor is not utilized to shut off the gas supply valve upon loss of flame or to re-energize a spark ignitor for immediate re-ignition in the event of flame out. However, flame out can occur on a so-called attended top burner and not be noticed by the user until a sufficient amount of unburned gas has flowed through the burner so as to create a hazardous condition.
Household cooking appliances therefore commonly employ a fuel line pressure regulator mounted separately at the inlet of the burner supply manifold. This arrangement requires additional fittings and gas line conduits to make the necessary connections and results in increased cost in the manufacture of the appliance and also the risk of leaks from the additional fittings required to connect the pressure regulator during assembly of the appliance.
Thus it has long been desired to provide a way or means of regulating flow to a fuel gas burner manifold in a manner which is low in manufacturing costs and which minimizes the risk of leakage in service.